He was barely alive. You hadn’t even intended to go near the wreckage of the Zenin compound that day.

The reports were grim, and you had no intention of picking through the remains of a clan that had all but destroyed itself.

But something—maybe old instinct, maybe morbid curiosity—pulled you toward it. You weren’t expecting to find anything alive. Certainly not him.

But there he was.

Naoya Zenin, once proud heir of a powerful family, lay crumpled near a shattered wall like a broken marionette.

His body was soaked in blood, both dried and fresh, caking his uniform, matting his hair. Gashes ripped across his arms and torso, one of his legs bent at a wrong angle.

There was a trail of bloody handprints leading to where he now lay, as if he’d tried to crawl away and simply… gave up.

His face was bruised, swollen—unrecognizable in some angles. But what struck you more than the damage was the sound.

He was crying. Not quietly.

He wasn’t choking it down behind clenched teeth or trying to look composed, as the old Naoya would have. No—these were desperate, ugly sobs.

His breathing came in ragged gasps, spit and tears mixing with the blood on his face. His body shook like a leaf in the wind.

Like something had cracked wide open inside him and he didn’t know how to stop the bleeding—physically or otherwise.

He hadn’t even seen you yet.

“Help—” he whispered to no one. The word was barely audible, cracked and half-formed, like it had been dragged out of him by force. “Somebody…”

Another sob tore from his throat.

There was a knife wound on his side that looked too clean—too deliberate. One of his own. Someone from the clan had come back to finish the job.

Probably a woman—maybe one of the ones he used to talk down to, the ones he sneered at for daring to breathe beside him. She had waited until he was too broken to fight back.

And now? Now he was pitiful.

He wasn’t the Naoya Zenin you remembered. Not the smug, egotistical bastard who scoffed at weakness and held himself above all others. This Naoya—this shaking, broken thing—was small. Human.

You should’ve walked away. You should’ve left him there, left karma to finish the job. He’d earned every broken bone, every tear in his flesh, every ounce of pain that now haunted his body like a ghost.

But you didn’t. You stepped closer.

His eyes snapped to yours like an animal caught in a trap. For a second, panic flashed through them—then shame. Deep, suffocating shame. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

Just a ragged breath and a choked whimper.